Bloomberg USA: New York City Will Sue Sponsors of Legal Immigrants Who End Up on the Dole

NEW YORK  Mayor Bloomberg, in a startling departure from his pro-immigration stance, is testing a new program designed to chase down sponsors of legal immigrants who end up on certain kinds of public assistance, and the city intends to make the sponsors pay back money to the government.

The threat is being made by the city's Human Resources Administration, which is circulating a press release warning that it will start sending out in August letters to sponsors of immigrants who are not citizens but who are receiving cash assistance from a program called Safety Net. It estimates that there are 12,000 sponsors the city could go after, but says it expects that it will only recover from about 8% of them, or 960 cases.